This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
Uyghurs marked the 15th anniversary of deadly ethnic violence in Xinjiang by demonstrating outside U.N. offices in Switzerland and Chinese diplomatic missions in various cities around the world, demanding that the international community stop China from committing genocide in the far-western region.
The protests came on July 5, a day after member states blasted China over its human rights record — and particularly about its persecution of mostly Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, which Uyghurs refer to as East Turkistan — during a review of China’s rights record at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Uyghur exile and advocacy groups believe that the United Nations and individual states have failed to take concrete measures to punish China for severe rights violations in Xinjiang, including mass detentions, torture, cultural genocide, forced labor and the forced sterilization of Uyghur women.
China denies it has committed rights abuses against the 11 million strong Uyghurs.
In Istanbul, Turkey, which has a sizable Uyghur community, protesters gathered outside the Chinese consulate, waving the blue-and-white flag of East Turkistan and shouting, “Get out of East Turkistan” and “East Turkistan, not Xinjiang!”
“We insist that the truth of the genocide in East Turkistan must be recognized by all countries and the U.N. General Assembly, and it should be acknowledged under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Declaration on the Prevention of Genocide,” Hidayatullah Oguz Khan, chairman of the International Union of East Turkistan Organizations, said at a press conference at the protest.
“To end the genocide and occupation, and to achieve results for the legitimate struggle of the East Turkistan people, it is imperative to accept and support the legitimacy of this struggle,” he said.
Uyghurs also rallied on July 5 in front of Chinese diplomatic missions in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and in various European countries to commemorate the 2009 crackdown in Urumqi, where some 200 people died and 1,700 were injured in a three-day rampage of violence between Uyghurs and Han Chinese, according to Chinese government figures. However, Uyghur human rights groups believe the actual number killed was about 1,000.
The event became a catalyst for the Chinese government’s efforts to repress Uyghur culture, language and religion through a mass surveillance and internment campaign.
Mixed reviews
At the review of China’s human rights record in Geneva on July 4, some Human Rights Council representatives criticized Beijing for refusing to act on previous recommendations to clean up its act.
In 2022, a report by then-U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who visited Xinjiang, said China’s mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region may constitute crimes against humanity.
The following year, 51 countries, including the U.S., expressed deep concern to the U.N. over China’s human rights violations of Uyghurs in Xinjiang — a measure that came after China was elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2024-2026 term, despite its poor track record in protecting rights.
Chinese state media portrayed the rights record review as a success, with countries such as Russia, Venezuela and Vietnam praising Beijing’s efforts to protect and promote human rights.
And many Muslim-majority countries have remained silent about China’s treatment of the Uyghurs.
Bachelet’s successor, Volker Türk, this March urged China to carry out recommendations from his office to protect human rights in Xinjiang, Tibet and across the country.
Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, said the recommendations rejected by Beijing were “politically motivated based on disinformation, ideologically biased or interfering in China’s traditional sovereignty,” Voice of America reported.
